A Good All-Round Reverb Plug-in

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

With regard to 'Breeze 2'. I think the results are somewhat skewed given the current sale/voucher-combination price. At that price, it is a no-brainer, and would be my recommendation also. At it's normal retail price, it is still a great 'verb, but buying it without question is not as easy a proposition

Agreed, like Ultrareverb, I don't think it's quite the value at its normal price. And to be clear, I think that Breeze is more justifed at its regular price than Ultrareverb even. I think that if you consider price in the absence of a sale, Toneboosters R4 is hard to beat.

Yup! And then there's ValhalaDSP (Yeah, I know you don't rate them). Once Breeze returns to it's normal price, the question becomes, "Is it really 2.5 times better than VVV"...for example.

This is not being negative about Breeze - I do like it a lot. However, it just doesn't (to my ears, at least) offer me anything I don't already have. Even at the no-brainer price, I didn't bite

TB-R4 is great, but I am not sold on the UI.

[ghettosynth]

cool stuff! ..the 1st episode (Product Focus - What Is The Best Reverb For Orchestral Samples?) got me to into seriously searching for a great and more realistic/natural sounding reverb and to be more acute/perceptive when judging the overall sound quality of a reverb.

but anyway, blind tests are both fun and revealing/clarifying at least what one's subjective taste is. If one has a hard time choosing from a blind test I guess it's either that the differences are very subtle or possibly the user is not experimented enough or unsure on what it wants

It was interesting, but, we have to be careful. As much as I am an advocate for blind tests, this lacks some rigor. Although we'd like to treat each stage as an independent test, it's not really. Do your preferences change when ordered differently? If you listened to different samples each applied randomly to two different reverbs you could probably get a good sense of your relative preference of A over B. This is assuming that you have enough data. Without doing any actual power analysis I would guess that about ten times per pair would give you a good start. So with eight reverbs you have 8P2 pairs, because order matters, A before B is different than B before A, so that's 56 different pairs times 10 samples per ordering means that you have to listen to over five hundred tests to get a good ordering. You can't do this all at once because fatigue sets in. This is not an experimental design, just a rough, back of the envelope, outline of where I might begin. Even if you think my 10 samples per pair is high, you are going to have a hard time justifying fewer than 5 samples per pair, so, at best, you half the number of listens to about 250 (sample pairs) or so. The essence of this thinking is that you cannot claim determinism over your own preference, it is intrinsically statistical and so demands statistical evidence if you want to claim that your preference ordering isn't dependent on context, in particular, temporal context.

That said, I regularly pseudo blind test myself in the sense that I set something up so that I can't know which one of two things I'm playing first and then switch between them. I have both surprised myself, and confirmed perceptions. This kind of quick testing between two things is less demanding than trying to create a preference ordering of a large number of things because, well, you only have two things to compare. Just repeating the listening and writing down your preference a number of times is probably enough. It's better though if each listen is slightly different so that you can minimize memorization.

I think that one of the best reasons to do this sort of thing is to remove visual bias, which can be a huge factor in your preferences.

[ghettosynth]

With regard to 'Breeze 2'. I think the results are somewhat skewed given the current sale/voucher-combination price. At that price, it is a no-brainer, and would be my recommendation also. At it's normal retail price, it is still a great 'verb, but buying it without question is not as easy a proposition

Agreed, like Ultrareverb, I don't think it's quite the value at its normal price. And to be clear, I think that Breeze is more justifed at its regular price than Ultrareverb even. I think that if you consider price in the absence of a sale, Toneboosters R4 is hard to beat.

Yup! And then there's ValhalaDSP (Yeah, I know you don't rate them). Once Breeze returns to it's normal price, the question becomes, "Is it really 2.5 times better than VVV"...for example.

This is not being negative about Breeze - I do like it a lot. However, it just doesn't (to my ears, at least) offer me anything I don't already have. Even at the no-brainer price, I didn't bite

TB-R4 is great, but I am not sold on the UI.

You might be misunderstanding what I think of Valhalla reverbs. They're not general, they're each a bit specific and to get a general verb (collection) you really need all four of them, or at the very least three of them, and at that price, they're no longer a bargain. That is, whenever I've considered them, I haven't preferred their sound over something else that was on sale at a better price.

So, as it turns out,I don't have any of them because they've never been that super bargain. Unfortunately, they're also not specific enough to make it to my niche reverb purchase list so instead of them, I've picked up things like PSP2445 and 2016Room (which doesn't really count because it was free, but same idea), little plate, AR plates ($29) etc.

I don't pretend to know Sean's business, but, if ever anyone needed a $99 everything bundle, it's Valhalla.

To the best of my recollection I've only ever paid full price for one reverb and that reverb (TVerb) was on intro offer and it has a very unique feature (moving mics) that I use all of the time for abusive special effects.

[ghettosynth]

Also, related to the little experiment above, I found it interesting that Bricasti lost out early in both rounds. I also think that it sounds a bit "tarty," and I even though I really like the work that Liquidsonics is doing, I didn't like Seventh Heaven enough to bite at any of the offered prices. I actually prefer the sound of the Bricasti Fusion IRs in Reverberate II. I think that my preferences here, regarding VVV, and EA R2, might all be related, but, I haven't thought about it enough to say much more than I find their sound a bit "tarty."

FWIW: I think Reverberate 2 is the essential IR verb to own.

[3ee]

..Do your preferences change when ordered differently? If you listened to different samples each applied randomly to two different reverbs you could probably get a good sense of your relative preference of A over B.

thought of that as well.. I'd say that yes, results can change when samples are ordered differently... but then I wouldn't compare such a large number of things at once. I guess they wouldn't either, the video seems to be made more for fun .. more 'pseudo' than science.. and nothing wrong with that too depending on the case.

[Lotuzia]

Exponential Audio and Lexicon here. Very happy. For less conventional stuff, sometimes Aether ( but no an all rounder imho)

[ghettosynth]

..Do your preferences change when ordered differently? If you listened to different samples each applied randomly to two different reverbs you could probably get a good sense of your relative preference of A over B.

thought of that as well.. I'd say that yes, results can change when samples are ordered differently... but then I wouldn't compare such a large number of things at once. I guess they wouldn't either, the video seems to be made more for fun .. more 'pseudo' than science.. and nothing wrong with that too depending on the case.

I agree, my comments were more for discussion here where people sometimes tend to overvalue things like this as evidence of anything. Also, people dismiss "science" when it comes to their personal preference without realizing that their own biases, and different ones at that, might be dominating their choices at any given time.

[Elektronisch]

ValhallaRoom, VintageVerb or Bricasti M7 (hardware reverb wich i dont have myself i wish tho).

I like those most, and reverb is a taste thing rather then "good" thing. Even older reverbs like Renaissance Reverb still sounds great,Arts acoustic reverb wich is also very old, sounds still great and i know some of the top well known artists are still using as a go-to.

In the end its a taste thing

p.s. dont be lazy and dont browse thro presets, usualy you have to tweak the reverb according to the sound

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

You might be misunderstanding what I think of Valhalla reverbs.

Well, some time back you were mocking me for mentioning that I thought they were good quality, so...

They're not general, they're each a bit specific and to get a general verb (collection) you really need all four of them

At least for my uses, I disagree. I am in no doubt that you have a better working knowledge of the technical aspects of reverbs, and have a better 'ear' for them. For me, however, 'Vintage' can provide a workable solution for the types of reverbs that come in both 'Room' and 'Plate'. I am not arguing against specialisation, and offering the extra depth that those plugins have; rather, I'm speaking to the All-Round nature of this thread, and my desire to limit the unnecessary overlap of the tools in my 'shed'.

VVV can get pretty clean under the 'Now' setting, and when modulation is controlled. Added to that, some of the algo's get pretty clean and smooth. I'm generally very happy with the results for most cases. In fact, it's only when I load up 'Room', for comparison, that I realise that things can still get a little cleaner. And while I hear the difference when I'm designing around a certain sound, isolated from other tracks, it's a difference that gets lost in a mix. Different can be good sometimes, but not for it's own sake. It has to be better

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that VVV is my only reverb, nor that it should be anybody else's only reverb. Just saying that it could be. I have got hold of more 'verbs since then: Soundtoys gifted me 'Plate', Eventide gifted me 'Stereo Room', Reflektor came bundled with a 2nd-hand license of GR5, EA finally allowed the R32 they'd gifted me to run on soft-iLok, Apple gifted me with 'Chromaverb', and a much more useable interface for 'Space designer', and I ended up buying a 2nd-hand license for 2cAudio's B2. Add those to 'VVV', 'Room', and 'Shimmer', and it's an embarrassment of riches (I do actually feel a little embarrassed). After some housekeeping, I reckon I'll be left with the two Logic offerings (Wouldn't ditch Space Designer, anyway),'Reflektor' (Makes sense to keep using it within the GR5 universe), 'VVV', and 'B2'. Take that for what it's worth

[ghettosynth]

You might be misunderstanding what I think of Valhalla reverbs.

Well, some time back you were mocking me for mentioning that I thought they were good quality, so...

I don't remember the conversation really, but they've never made the cut for any of my purchases and I still don't think that they're in the top as compared to the reverbs that I think are there. That's probably what I was saying. The general concensus is that they are good, but not stellar They didn't make the cut above compare to, e.g., lexicon in both rounds. That's not quite significant data, but we're getting there.

I should say though, they are decent reverbs and given a different set of circumstances I might have ended up with them. I also have immense respect for Sean and some part of my dislike could certainly be attributed to taste. I'm not really a fan of the Bricast sound either, so there's that.

[andymcbain]

Breeze 2 is about to go on sale again, FYI

[Andrew Souter]

...nope. We generally have a Christmas/Holiday/Winter promo, and a summer promo (like now) -- like many companies. That's it in terms of promos throughout the year. We also have introductory offers for new products -- also like many other companies. This helps everyone, as early adopters often inevitably help with final stability issues on the huge number of systems/platforms/environments out there. That's about it if you are budget conscious. (And if you are a working pro, the full retail price is easily affordable year round anyway, and there is no need to wait for a special promo. The price is insubstantial compared to the value of a full pro studio. Particularly for something that is likely to be a central "goto" in the whole studio.)

There will be a FREE minor update to Breeze 2 shortly however with a few extra enhancements. A couple extra DSP/sound features, plus additional enhancements to our new fancy GUI system to make it even prettier.

[3ee]

There will be a FREE minor update to Breeze 2 shortly however with a few extra enhancements. A couple extra DSP/sound features, plus additional enhancements to our new fancy GUI system to make it even prettier.

great, can't wait to check it out!
oh please consider adding at least one (extra) peak eq band for the reverb damping!

[e@rs]

The general consensus is that they are good, but not stellar

KVR knows better, yet people like FKA Twigs, Black Sun Empire, Chicane and Chvrches are happy with Valhalla reverbs...

(Please don't take it personally!)

[ghettosynth]

The general consensus is that they are good, but not stellar

KVR knows better, yet people like FKA Twigs, Black Sun Empire, Chicane and Chvrches are happy with Valhalla reverbs...

(Please don't take it personally!)

LOL, why would I? Of course they're happy, Valhalla makes fine products. That's really cute BTW! I don't know what else to say, hagiography just isn't my thing and as much as I dig that one track that's in Forza Horizon 3, I wouldn't be asking her royal cuteness for any technical advice. You should probably choose better idols if you want to sway my opinion, although, +1 for cuteness!